Not necessarily favors that they need help with. People regardless of gender will ask strangers for, say, directions. That makes sense. They are lost and in distress, and if you’re a good person, you’ll help them out. If someone on the street is screaming “has anyone seen my child!?” I think, regardless of their gender, you should help them with that.

That’s different than men on the street yelling, “smile for me, baby!” at women they pass. And yes, that happens pretty exclusively to women. A woman will never ask a random man on the street to smile solely because that would make his face look nicer for her to stare at.

Of course she wouldn’t. That would be an bizarre thing to do.

Men have never felt compunction about doing this to women.

"We smile. Because otherwise men might freak out."

So, we smile. Because otherwise men might freak out. Or we talk to them at parties even if we’ve made it clear we’re trying to read, or waiting for someone, or with someone, because we don’t want to be accused of being mean. Generally, the kind of guys who are comfortable demanding a stranger entertain them are also very comfortable calling that stranger a bitch if she declines to do so.

These men seem, even in 2018, to be taking a page from Das Frauenbuch, which states, “My lady… I entreat you: women must do and allow everything that we, men, desire and seems good to us. The woman who would not do so willingly, has to do so nonetheless. That is how things are.” That was written around 1257, and it would be nice if views had updated a little more since then.

Alas, they haven’t, much.

Just look at what happened to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez when Ben Shapiro challenged her to a debate.

Now, politicians should debate other politicians. The fact that Ocasio-Cortez’s opponent, Joe Crowley, wouldn’t initially debate her during her campaign was a cause for anger. (Rep. Crowley did eventually agree to show up to two debates in June, though he also sent former New York City Councilwoman Annabel Palma as his proxy to another event to debate Ocasio-Cortez.)

My opponent seems to be avoiding a debate, and isn’t acknowledging me. It’s just the 2 of us.

So weekend I stopped by his office, said hello, & asked for a debate in person.

Shapiro makes a living having takes that are intended to aggravate liberals, and, consequently, is beloved by a certain group of conservatives. He’s sometimes referred to as a professional debater.

He issued a challenge to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, offering her a $10,000 donation to her favorite charity if she’d debate him. She ignored it and went on with her life, which is what women have been doing for ages when strange men offer them money for doing things they do not want to do. When women do not reply to strange men, that in itself is a reply that means, “please leave me alone.”

That seems like a good decision. There were probably a lot of reasons to ignore that offer. Off the top of my head:

I imagine she has better things to do to benefit her district than debate a man who thinks transgender people are mentally ill.

I cannot imagine that anyone whose living is tied to making videos that DESTROY liberals in all caps is really interested in a good faith exploration of ideas.

This stands to benefit him a lot more than it does her.

Taking money from, again, a person who thinks transgender people are mentally ill, is a remarkably bad look. Doing so would seem to indicate that anyone can buy a seat at any table, and that we have to debate every stupid idea we come across if people offer a significant sum of money.

So, a women did not respond to a man, and men got very angry. At that, Ocasio-Cortez responded to Shapiro claiming that she’d “refused to respond” by saying:

“Just like catcalling, I don’t owe a response to unsolicited requests from men with bad intentions. And also like catcalling, for some reason they feel entitled to one.”

Just like catcalling, I don’t owe a response to unsolicited requests from men with bad intentions.

Conservatives were positively shocked that she compared this to catcalling. Mark Dice exclaimed, “Only a deranged person would equate a challenge to a political debate with being sexually harassed. This crazy-eyed lunatic is out of her mind!” Men deciding you’re a lunatic because you don’t want to talk to them is… pretty much what happens when you don’t respond to catcalls or get upset about them, too.

Ben Shapiro replied: “sure, go with “the Orthodox Jew who has never catcalled a woman in his life is ACKSHUALLY a sexist catcaller for asking for a discussion or debate.”

But sure, go with “the Orthodox Jew who has never catcalled a woman in his life is ACKSHUALLY a sexist catcaller for asking for a discussion or debate.” I’m sure your media sycophants will eat it up.

Look, I’ll take Ben Shapiro at his word that he hasn’t catcalled anyone insofar as I don’t think he’s stood on a street corner yelling “show me your tits!” But he and his followers do feel entitled to a woman’s time and attention, simply because he demanded it. It’s disturbing that male entitlement is so ubiquitous that people don’t even notice it unless it comes in the form of a man screaming sexual suggestions at a woman from a car.

But it’s actually something that happens all the time. If you’re a woman, strange men expect you to put aside your book to talk to them if you’re reading in a café. They’ll expect your help with their work, even when you’re working on your own work at the office. They’ll catcall you on the street, and then get angry about how you’re a bitch if you ignore them or say you don’t like it.

It’s because men still feel fundamentally entitled to women’s time and energy. Because really, what better use could it have than being of service to them?

"Male entitlement is so ubiquitous that people don’t even notice it unless it comes in the form of a man screaming sexual suggestions at a woman from a car."

And I’d love to say that the best response is for women to start screaming “I owe you nothing” at these guys. I’d love for us to have any effective response to this other than “ooh, sorry, I’m saving that seat for my boyfriend.” But that’s not a viable solution a lot of the time. For one thing, you’ll get thrown out of that café you’re reading in. For another thing, I think it’s reasonable not to want to enrage people who might have 50 pounds on you.

So, I think that all we can do is tell people that, yes, this happens. Men we do not know feel entitled to our time pretty regularly. You can’t necessarily explain that to men like Ben Shapiro. But you can explain it to your friends, and family members, and pretty much any dude who is not aggressively in the process of demanding your time. We can produce change in societal attitudes by speaking up, and getting others to see problems where they might not have before.

But not by speaking to guys who just want you to do stuff for them. With those guys, just keep your head down and keep walking.

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